Straight out of high school I served in the military and then spent the past 10 years working in IT.I have finally reached a point where I’m tired of working for the corporate industry on a limited salary while doing nothing for my retirement.For the past year I’ve been watching house flipping shows and decided I wanted to give it a try.Six months ago I bought my first house with a 203k loan that I’m currently living in so I could get some experience.I paid $167,500 for the house and took out $35,000 with the 203k.The house was a probate that had been abandoned for 5 years.Half the house was on a concrete slab that had sunk about 4” in the middle and it was completely outdated.We removed 2 load bearing walls to open up the kitchen, knocked out the back wall, built a new subfloor, and put up a 4 panel sliding glass door to let in some sun light.We installed porcelain tile in the kitchen, stainless steel appliances, new cabinets and quartz counters as well as recessed lighting.We fixed the foundation problems by mudjacking to raise the floors and carpeted the back 3 rooms that sat on top of the slab.As you can imagine we ran through the $35,000 quickly.The 2 bathrooms are still outdated and the house needs new siding.After the renovation we had it reappraised (per the 203k loan agreement) and they said it was worth $215,000.About 3 months after the renovation I attended a 3 day Fortune Builders seminar and come to a realization I probably could have saved about $20,000 if I had systems and processes to follow before I purchased the house.After listening to BP podcasts and hear other people’s experiences I’m quite fortunate I didn’t lose money.This sums up my real estate investing experience.

We provide property management, maintenance, renovation, and real estate sales.Feel free to contact me for more info.

Joe, great decision, not only should you consider buying using FHA, perhaps consider buying a fixer upper and using a FHA203k Loan to acquire and renovate at the same time.

Am I good at renovation?

But isn't that rather petty when you are already facing $15,000 in renovations?

We are looking to purchase a house soon and potentially renovate and hold until we can afford another house so that we can rent out the first one.

The houses around this one are supposedly worth between $300k-$370k they are smaller (1800sqft) and appear to have been renovated.  

Chris Gliatas shoot me a PM, I am in need of a General Contractor for a full renovation of a Commerical property in the Columbus area.

I'm trying to get and idea of how this situation will effect my tax bill for 2015.I purchased and renovated a house in fall of 2015 with cash from a heloc on another property.

Each property was recently renovated city funds from a neighborhood stabilization program.